A Painting by Hopper at Phillips Collection

Approaching a City, 1946

You come from New Jersey, you enter Manhattan: the tunnel behind leads to Penn Station. I love this painting.


Anytime I arrive at New York, I see the place, I think at the painting. Anytime I visit Phillips Collection, I find the painting over the tiled fireplace, I think at the place. Here is a close-up:



Like in many of Hopper's paintings, there is a hidden tension; it's like the place is waiting for something to happen; or rather it's like the place knows something and we don't; or it's like there is something that we cannot observe, but it's there, and we know that. The same could be said about The Nighthawks, or Cape Cod Evening, to give only two examples. What's remarkable here, in Approaching a City, is that the painting has no characters: the place acts as a character, it keeps a story behind. The realism of Hopper keeps always this ambiguity, this story behind.


Here is a photo of the place as it looks now:




(Phillips Collection)

(Hopper)